The Fortune Hunters by Joseph Louis Vance

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Title: The Fortune Hunter

Author: Louis Joseph Vance

Illustrator: Arthur William Brown

Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9747]
Release Date: January, 2006
First Posted: October 15, 2003

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj, Tonya Allen
and PG Distributed Proofreaders

THE FORTUNE HUNTER

By Louis Joseph Vance

Author Of "The Brass Bowl," "The Bronze Bell," Etc.

With illustrations by Arthur William Brown

1910

To George Spellvin, Esq.,

This book is cheerfully dedicated

CONTENTS

I. FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT

II. TO HIM THAT HATH

III. INSPIRATION

IV. TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN

V. MARGARET'S DAUGHTER

VI. INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER

VII. A WINDOW IN RADVILLE

VIII. THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO

IX. SMALL BEGINNINGS

X. ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND

XI. BLINKY LOCKWOOD

XII. DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE

XIII. THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM

XIV. MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY

XV. MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE

XVI. WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD

XVII. TRACEY'S TROUBLES

XVIII. A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN

XIX. PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG

XX. ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND

XXI. AS OTHERS SAW HIM

XXII. ROLAND'S TRIUMPH

XXIII. THE RAINBOW'S END

ILLUSTRATIONS

'You can be worth a million ... within a year'

'You mean you're going to work here?'

'Four hundred dollars, mr. sheriff'

'Betty!'

'You're a thief with a reward out for you!'

'Forever and ever and a day'

I

FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT

Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater & Spaulding, importers of motoring garments and
accessories, listened to the switchboard operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it
with a toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone he swung round in his chair
to face the door of his private office, and in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face
and attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his caller. It was, as a matter of
fact, anything but a pleasant one: he had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet superstition or two, and of
the number of these the first was that he must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a poker-
player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that, Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions
it was strictly in private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent imperturbability which at
times almost deceived its wearer.

Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he entered on the echo of

Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque
complaints: he encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure with a blank face,
the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind
them; a prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind; a machine for the
transaction of business, with all a machine's vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that
quality in him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself could only imitate,
however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might learn to ape something of its efficiency and so,
ultimately, prove himself of some worth to the world—and, incidentally, to Nathaniel Duncan. Thus far
his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements and limitations of the world of business his own
equipment of misfit inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out signal failures. So he
envied Spaulding without particularly admiring him.

Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and with no animus to be discerned in
his attitude, provided Duncan with one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of dignity
(tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished
from his habit and for a little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and confidence.

"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he dropped into the chair that nod had
indicated. A faint smile lightened his expression and made it quite engaging.

"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat little fingers and contemplated them
with detached intentness. "Just get in, Duncan?"

"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."

There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with impartial interest; in that pause
Duncan's poor little hope died a natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got me—
overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."

"You haven't wasted time."

"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."

Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"

"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired me to come home that you wanted my advice."

A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly surprised out of his pose. "Your
advice!..."

"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your customers on my route or send
them a man who could sell goods."

"Well...." Spaulding admitted.

"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have guessed as much from the great
number of heavy orders I have not been sending you."

"You've had bad luck...."

"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be drawing down my weekly cheques,
bad luck to you not to have a man who could earn them."

His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not seeming a business man to himself he
inclined dubiously to relent, to give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection, distinction; whatever he was not, he
was a man of birth and breeding. His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his shirt-cuffs
frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained
his air. You'd think he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something, given half a
chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.

"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"

"I thought you knew that; I thought that was why you called me in with my route half-covered."

"You mean—?"

"I mean I can't sell your line."

"Why?"

"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general incompetence, I presume."

"What makes you think that?"

Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.

"You've tried—what else?"

"A little of everything—all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of Latin and Greek and the higher
mathematics: shipping clerk, time-keeper, cashier—all of 'em."

"And yet Kellogg believes in you."

Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at college. That's why he stands
for me."

"He says you only need the right opening—."

"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's the back door going out, for
mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his—
like yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be ornamental and irregular rather
than useful; to blow about in motor cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day—and all that sort of
thing. My father's failure—you know about that?"

Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more freely than he would at any other
time—suffering, in fact, from that species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down on his luck.

"That smash came when I was five years out of college—I'd never thought of turning my hand to
anything in all that time. I'd always had more coin than I could spend—never had to consider the worth
of money or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to want me to work: not that
I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he
failed and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive wardrobe, expensive tastes, an
impractical education—and not so much of that that you'd notice it—and not a cent.... I was too proud
to look to my friends for help in those days—and perhaps that was as well; I sought jobs on my own....
Did you ever keep books in a fish-market?"

"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.

"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise, suddenly remembering himself.

"You're not. Go on."

"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an explanation of Kellogg's kindness to
me, in my usual ineffectual way—felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
through his misplaced interest in me."

"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm interested. About the fish-market?"

"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience—and the last of that particular brand. I got
nine dollars a week and earned every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of finance—paying laundry bills and
clothing myself, besides buying lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you know—
one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never could make up my mind which was the
worst. The hours were easy, too: didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great constitution I've got."

He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed upon the retrospect that was a grim
prospect of the imminent future.

"And then—?"

"Oh—?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he found me trying the open-air cure on
a bench in Washington Square. Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a sure-
enough optimist."

Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose unwisdom he could not doubt.

Duncan had assuredly done his case no good by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet,
somehow strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted confession.

"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.

"Yes; of course," said Duncan promptly, rising. "Sorry if I tired you."

"What do you mean by: 'Yes, of course'?"

"That you called me in to fire me—and so that's over with. Only I'd be sorry to have you sore on
Kellogg for saddling me on you. You see, he believed I'd make good, and so did I in a way: at least, I
hoped to."

"Oh, that's all right," said Spaulding uncomfortably. "The trouble is, you see, we've nothing else open just
now. But if you'd really like another chance on the road, I—I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Atwater about
it."

"Don't you do it!" Duncan counselled him sharply, aghast. "He might say yes. And I simply couldn't
accept; it wouldn't be fair to you, Kellogg, or myself. It'd be charity—for I've proved I can't earn my
wages; and I haven't come to that yet. No!" he concluded with determination, and picked up his hat.

"Just a minute." Spaulding held him with a gesture. "You're forgetting something: at least I am. There's a
month's pay coming to you; the cashier will hand you the cheque as you go out."

"A month's pay?" Duncan said blankly. "How's that? I've drawn up to the end of this week already, if
you didn't know it."

"Of course I knew it. But we never let our men go without a month's notice or its equivalent, and—"

"No," Duncan interrupted firmly. "No; but thank you just the same. I couldn't. I really couldn't. It's good
of you, but ... Now," he broke off abruptly, "I've left my accounts—what there is of them—with the
book-keeping department, and the checks for my sample trunks. There'll be a few dollars coming to me
on my expense account, and I'll send you my address as soon as I get one."

"But look here—" Spaulding got to his feet, frowning.

"No," reiterated Duncan positively. "There's no use. I'm grateful to you for your toleration of me—and all
that. But we can't do anything better now than call it all off. Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding."

Spaulding nodded, accepting defeat with the better grace because of an innate conviction that it was just
as well, after all. And, furthermore, he admired Duncan's stand. So he offered his hand: an unusual
condescension. "You'll make good somewhere yet," he asserted.

"I wish I could believe it." Duncan's grasp was firm since he felt more assured of some humanity latent in
his late employer. "However ... Good-bye."

"Good luck to you," rang in his ears as the door put a period to the interview. He stopped and took up
the battered suitcase and rusty overcoat which he had left outside the junior partner's office, then went
on, shaking his head. "Much obliged," he said huskily to himself. "But what's the good of that. There's no
room anywhere for a professional failure. And that's what I am; just a ne'er-do-well. I never realised
what that meant, really, before, and it's certainly taken me a damn' long time to find out. But I know
now, all right...."

Outside, on the steps of the building, he paused a moment, fascinated by the brisk spectacle afforded by
lower Broadway at the hour when the cave-like offices in its cliff-like walls begin to empty themselves,
when the overlords and their lieutenants close their desks and turn their faces homewards, leaving the
details of the day's routine to be wound up by underlings. In the clear light of the late spring afternoon a
stream of humanity was high and fluent upon the sidewalks. Duncan had glimpses of keen-faced men,
bright-faced women, eager boys, quickened all by that manner of efficiency and intelligence which seems
so integrally American. A well-dressed throng, well-fed, amiable and animated, looking ever forward,
the resistless tide of affairs that gave it being bore it onward; it passed the onlooker as a strong current
passes flotsam in a back-eddy, with no pause, no turning aside. Acutely he felt his aloofness from it, who
had no part in its interests and scarcely any comprehension of them. The sunken look, the leanness of his
young face, seemed suddenly accentuated; the gloom in his discontented eyes deepened; his slight
habitual stoop became more noticeable. And a second time he nodded acquiescence to his unspoken
thought.

"There," said he, singling out a passer-by upon whose complacent features prosperity had set its smug

hall-mark—"there, but for the grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his
tongue and found it bitter—not, however, with a tonic bitterness. "Lord, what a worthless critter I am!
No good to myself—nor to anybody else. Even on Harry I'm a drag—a regular old man of the
mountains!"

Despondently he went down to the sidewalk and merged himself with the crowd, moving with it though a
thousand miles apart from it, and presently diverging, struck across-town toward the Worth Street
subway station.

"And the worst of it is, he's too sharp not to find it out—if he hasn't by this time—and too damn' decent
by far to let me know if he has! ... It can't go on this way with us: I can't let him ... Got to break with him
somehow—now—to-day. I won't let him think me ... what I've been all along to him.... Bless his foolish
heart!..."

This resolution coloured his reverie throughout the uptown journey. And he strengthened himself with it,
deriving a sort of acrid comfort from the knowledge that henceforth none should know the burden of his
misfortunes save himself. There was no deprecation of Kellogg's goodness in his mood, simply
determination no longer to be a charge upon it. To contemplate the sum total of the benefits he had
received at Kellogg's hands, since the day when the latter had found him ill and half-starved, friendless as
a stray pup, on the bench in Washington Square, staggered his imagination. He could never repay it, he
told himself, save inadequately, little by little—mostly by gratitude and such consideration as he purposed
now to exhibit by removing himself and his distresses from the other's ken. Here was an end to comfort
for him, an end to living in Kellogg's rooms, eating his food, busying his servants, spending his money—
not so much borrowed as pressed upon him. He stood at the cross-roads, but in no doubt as to which
way he should most honourably take, though it took him straight back to that from which Kellogg had
rescued him.

There crawled in his mind a clammy memory of the sort of housing he had known in those evil days, and
he shuddered inwardly, smelling again the effluvia of dank oilcloth and musty carpets, of fish-balls and
fried ham, of old-style plumbing and of nine-dollar-a-week humanity in the unwashen raw—the odour of
misery that permeated the lodgings to which his lack of means had introduced him. He could see again,
and with a painful vividness of mental vision, the degenerate "brownstone fronts" that mask those haunts
of wretchedness, with their flights of crumbling brownstone steps leading up to oaken portals haggard
with flaking paint, flanked by squares of soiled note-paper upon which inexpert hands had traced the
warning, not: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here," but: "Furnished rooms to let with board." And
pursuing this grim trail of memory, whether he would or no—again he climbed, wearily at the end of a
wearing day, a darksome well of a staircase up and up to an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the
terminology of landladies a "top hall back"—a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the hopes and
despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such
a "single bed" as is peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to cook a
surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket (with ears keen to catch the scuffle of
the landlady's feet as she skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).

And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days and joyless nights must set his face....

Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of his luggage and his cares a few
blocks northward on Madison Avenue ere turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had
established in the roaring Forties, just the other side of the Avenue—Fifth Avenue, on a corner of which
Duncan presently was held up for a time by a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently, waiting for the
mounted policeman to clear a way across, watching the while with lack-lustre eyes the interminable
procession of cabs and landaus, taxis and town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the street
from curb to curb.

The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the discouraged spirit of a retarded season.
Though the hegira of the well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there remained in
the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza
in the evening hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable power, pervaded the
atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He
surveyed the parade with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had been—upon a time.
Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there detected faces recognisable, of men and women
whose acquaintance he had once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired.
He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him worth winning, who had set herself
to stir his heart and—had been successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently, with
undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and beyond him. Her limousine hurried her
on, enthroned impregnably above the envious herd.

He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said, "dead right. You simply don't know

me any more, my dear—you musn't; you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."

None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate cup. In complete dejection of mind
and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's quarters, buoyed by a single hope—that Kellogg might be out of
town or delayed at his office.

In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings and escape unhandicapped by the
immediate necessity of justifying his course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word. But to-night he would willingly be
spared. He apprehended unhappily the interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation,
felt scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections with which Kellogg would
undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could
talk! with all the sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and self-confidence, all the
persuasiveness of profound conviction singular to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him
that Kellogg could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour grin: "That means
me..."

The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his arrival, and Duncan had his own key to
the door of Kellogg's apartment. He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance—a stupefied Robbins, thunderstruck by the unexpected return
of his master's friend and guest. "Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir, but—
but it can't be you!"

"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"

"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see you back."

"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."

"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."

"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom, Robbins following.

"It was only yesterday I posted a letter to you for Mr. Kellogg, sir, and the address was Omaha."

"I didn't get that far. Fetch along that suitcase, will you please? I want to put some clean things in it."

"Then you're not staying in town over night, Mr. Duncan?"

"I don't know. I'm not staying here, anyway." Duncan switched on the lights in his room. "Put it on the
bed, Robbins. I'll pack as quickly as I can. I'm in a hurry."

"Yes, sir, but—I hope there's nothing wrong?"

"Then you lose," returned Duncan grimly: "everything's wrong." He jerked viciously at an obstinate
bureau drawer, and when it yielded unexpectedly with the well-known impishness of the inanimate,
dumped upon the floor a tangled miscellany of shirts, socks, gloves, collars and ties.

"Didn't you like the business, sir?"

"No, I didn't like the business—and it didn't like me. It's the same old story, Robbins. I've lost my job
again—that's all."

"I'm very sorry, sir."

"Thank you—but that's all right. I'm used to it."

"And you're going to leave, sir?"

"I am, Robbins."

"I—may I take the liberty of hoping it's to take another position?"

"You may, but you lose a second time. I've just made up my mind I'm not going to hang round here any
longer. That's all."

"But," Robbins ventured, hovering about with exasperating solicitude—"but Mr. Kellogg'd never permit
you to leave in this way, sir."

"Wrong again, Robbins," said Duncan curtly, annoyed.

"Yes, sir. Very good, sir." With the instinct of the well-trained servant, Robbins started to leave, but
hesitated. He was really very much disturbed by Duncan's manner, which showed a phase of his
character new in Robbins' experience of him. Ordinarily reverses such as this had seemed merely to
serve to put Duncan on his mettle, to infuse him with a determination to try again and win out, whatever
the odds; and at such times he was accustomed to exhibit a mad irresponsibility of wit and a gaiety of
spirit (whether it were a mask or no) that only outrivalled his high good humour when things ostensibly
were going well with him.

Intermittently, between his spasms of employment, he had been Kellogg's guest for several years, not
infrequently for months at a time; and so Robbins had come to feel a sort of proprietary interest in the
young man, second only to the regard which he had for his employer. Like most people with whom
Duncan came in contact, Robbins admired him from a respectful distance, and liked him very well withal.
He would have been much distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much concerned
and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an
inference, Robbins mistrusted his intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding: men in
such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's
return, he thought the former might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of some insensate sort.
And casting about for an excuse, he grasped at the most sovereign solace he knew of.

"Beg pardon, sir," he advanced, hesitant, "but perhaps you're just feeling a bit blue. Won't you let me
bring you a drop of something?"

"Of course I will," said Duncan emphatically over his shoulder. "And get it now, will you, while I'm
packing.... And, Robbins!"

"Sir?"

"Only put a little in it."

"A little what, sir?"

"Seltzer, of course."

II

TO HIM THAT HATH

It had been a forlorn hope at best, this attempt of his to escape Kellogg: Duncan acknowledged it when,
his packing rudely finished, he started for the door, Robbins reluctantly surrendering the suit-case after
exhausting his repertoire of devices to delay the young man. But at that instant the elevator gate clashed
in the outer corridor and Kellogg's key rattled in the lock, to an accompanying confusion of voices, all
masculine and all very cheerful.

Duncan sighed and motioned Robbins away with his luggage. "No hope now," he told himself. "But—O
Lord!"

Incontinently there burst into the room four men: Jim Long, Larry Miller, another whom Duncan did not
immediately recognise, and Kellogg himself, bringing with them an atmosphere breezy with jubilation.
Before he knew it Duncan was boisterously overwhelmed. He got his breath to find Kellogg pumping his
hand.

"Nat," he was saying, "you're the only other man on earth I was wishing could be with me tonight! Now
my happiness is complete. Gad, this is lucky!"

"You think so?" countered Duncan, forcing a smile. "Hello, you boys!" He gave a hand to Long and
Miller. "How're you all?" He warmed to their friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good
to see you!" There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance, forbore to question his return;
he was to be counted upon for tact, was Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the fourth
member of the party.

"Nat," he said, "I want you to meet Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Duncan."

A wholesome smile dawned on Duncan's face as he encountered the blank blue stare of a young man
whose very smooth and very bright red face was admirably set off by semi-evening dress. "Great Scott!"

he cried, warmly pressing the lackadaisical hand that drifted into his. "Willy Bartlett—after all these
years!"

A sudden animation replaced the vacuous stare of the blue eyes. "Duncan!" he stammered. "I say, this is
rippin'!"

"As bad as that?" Duncan essayed an accent almost English and nodded his appreciation of it: something
which Bartlett missed completely.

He was very young—a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when they had been classmates,
what time Duncan shared his rooms with Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from
over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air did not escape it. "Smitten with my
old trouble," Duncan appraised him: "too much money... Heaven knows I hope he never recovers!"

As for Willy, he was momentarily more nearly human than he had seemed from the moment of his first
appearance. "You know," he blurted, "this is simply extraordinary. I say, you chaps, Duncan and I
haven't met for years—not since he graduated. We belonged to the same frat, y'know, and had a jolly
time of it, if he was an upper-class man. No side about him at all, y'know—absolutely none whatever.
Whenever I had to go out on a spree, I'd always get Nat to show me round."

"I was pretty good at that," Duncan admitted a trifle ruefully.

But Willy rattled on, heedless. "He knew more pretty gels, y'know... I say, old chap, d'you know as
many now?"

Duncan shook his head. "The list has shrunk. I'm a changed man, Willy."

"Ow, I say, you're chawfin'," Willy argued incredulously. "I don't believe that, y'know—hardly. I say,
you remember the night you showed me how to play faro bank?"

"I'll never forget it," Duncan told him gravely. "And I remember what a plug we thought my room-mate
was because he wouldn't come with us." He nodded significantly toward the amused Kellogg.

"Not him!" cried Willy, expostulant. "Not really? Why it cawn't be!"

"Fact," Duncan assured him. "He was working his way through college, you see, whereas I was working
my way through my allowance—and then some. That's why you never met him, Willy: he worked—and
got the habit. We loafed—with the same result. That's why he's useful and you're ornamental, and I'm—"
He broke off in surprise. "Hello!" he said as Robbins offered a tray to the three on which were slim-
stemmed glasses filled with a pale yellow, effervescent liquid. "Why the blond waters of excitement,
please?" he inquired, accepting a glass.

From across the room Larry Miller's voice sounded. "Are you ready, gentlemen? We'll drink to him first
and then he can drink to his royal little self. To the boy who's getting on in the world! To the junior
member of L.J. Bartlett and Company!"

Long applauded loudly: "Hear! Hear!" And even Willy Bartlett chimed in with an unemotional: "Good
work!" Mechanically Duncan downed the toast; Kellogg was the only man not drinking it, and from that
the meaning was easily to be inferred. With a stride Duncan caught his hand and crushed it in his own.

"Harry," he said a little huskily, "I can't tell you how glad I am! It's the best news I've had in years!"

Kellogg's responsive pressure was answer enough. "It makes it doubly worth while, to win out and have
you all so glad!" he said.

"So you've taken him into the firm, eh?" Duncan inquired of Bartlett.

The blue eyes widened stonily. "The governor has. I'm not in the business, y'know. Never had the
slightest turn for it, what?" Willy set aside his glass. "I say, I must be moving. No, I cawn't stop, Kellogg,
really. I was dressin' at the club and Larry told me about it, so I just dropped round to tell you how jolly
glad I am."

"Your father hadn't told you, then?"

"Who, the governor?" Willy looked unutterably bored. "Why, he gave up tryin' to talk business with me
long ago. I can't get interested in it, 'pon my word. Of course I knew he thought the deuce and all of you,
but I hadn't an idea they were goin' to take you into the firm. What?"

Long and Miller interrupted, proposing adieus which Kellogg vainly contended.

"Why, you're only just here—" he expostulated.

"Cawn't help it, old chap," Willy assured him earnestly. "I must go, anyway. I've a dinner engagement."

"You'll be late, won't you?"

"Doesn't matter in the least; I'm always late. 'Night, Kellogg. Congratulations again."

"We just dropped round to take off our hats to you," Long continued, pumping Kellogg's hand.

"And tell you what a good fellow we think you are," added Miller, following suit.

"You don't know how good you make me feel," Kellogg told them.

Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip away; but before he could gather
together his impedimenta and get to the door Willy Bartlett intercepted him.

"I say, Duncan—"

"Oh, hell!" said Duncan beneath his breath. He paused ungraciously enough.

"We've got to see a bit of one another, now we've met again, y'know. Wish you'd look me up—Half
Moon Club'll get me 'most any time. We'll have to arrange to make a regular old-fashioned night of it,
just for memory's sake."

Duncan nodded, edging past him. "I've memories enough," he said.

"Right-oh! Any reason at all, y'know, just so we have the night."

"Good enough," assented Duncan vaguely. He suffered his hand to be wrung with warmth. "I'll not forget
—good-night." Then he pulled up and groaned, for Willy's insistence had frustrated his design: Kellogg
had suddenly become alive to his attitude and hailed him over the heads of Long and Miller.

"Nat, I say! Where the devil are you going?"

"Over to the hotel," said Duncan.

"The deuce you are! What hotel?"

"The one I'm stopping at."

"Not on your life. You're not going just yet—I haven't had half a chance to talk to you. Robbins, take
Mr. Duncan's things."

Duncan, set upon by Robbins, who had been hovering round for just that purpose, lifted his shoulders in
resignation, turning back into the room as Miller and Long said good-night to him and left at Bartlett's
heels, and smiled awry in semi-humorous deprecation of the way in which he let Kellogg out-manoeuvre
him. When it came to that, it was hard to refuse Kellogg anything; he had that way with him. Especially if
one liked him... And how could anyone help liking him?

Kellogg had him now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's length, and shaking a reproving head
at his friend. "You big duffer!" he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down like that?"

Duncan stood passive, faintly amused and touched by the other's show of affection. "No," he said, "I
didn't really think so. But it was worth trying on, of course."

"Look here, have you dined?"

'At this suggestion Duncan stiffened and fell back. "No, but—"

Kellogg swept the ground from under his feet. "Robbins," he told the man, "order in dinner for two from
the club, and tell 'em to hurry it up."

"Yes, sir," said Robbins, and flew to obey before Duncan could get a chance to countermand his part in
the order.

"And now," continued Kellogg, "we've got the whole evening before us in which to chin. Sit down." He
led Duncan to an arm-chair and gently but firmly plumped him into its capacious depths. "We'll have a
snug little dinner here and—what do you say to taking in a show afterwards?"

"I say no."

"You dassent, my boy. This is the night we celebrate. I'm feeling pretty good to-night."

"You ought to, Harry." Duncan struggled to rouse himself to share in the spirit of gratulation with which
Kellogg was bubbling. "I'm mighty glad, old man. It's a great step up for you."

"It's all of that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Bartlett sprang it on me this
morning. Of course, I was expecting something—a boost in salary, or something like that. Bartlett knew
that other houses in the Street had made me offers—I've been pretty lucky of late and pulled off one or
two rather big deals—but a partnership with L.J. Bartlett—! Think of it, Nat!"

"I'm thinking of it—and it's great."

"It'll keep me mighty busy," Kellogg blundered blindly on; "it means a lot of extra work—but you know I
like to work...."

"That's right, you do," agreed Duncan drearily. "It's queer to me—it must be a great thing to like to
work."

"You bet it's a great thing; why, I couldn't exist if I couldn't work. You remember that time I laid off for a
month in the country—for my health's sake? I'll never forget it: hanging round all the time with my hands
empty—everyone else with something to do. I wouldn't go through with it again for a fortune. Never felt
so useless and in the way—"

"But," interrupted Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this problem, "you were independent,
weren't you? You had money—could pay your board?"

"Of course; nevertheless, I felt in the way."

"That's funny...."

"It's straight."

"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't be me if I did.... Look here, Harry;
suppose you didn't have any money and couldn't pay your board—and had nothing to do. How'd you
feel in that case?"

"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot—"

"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel when—when it's that way with me.... As it
generally is." He raised one hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it roused
Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.

"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't
looked for you till to-morrow."

"You knew, then?"

"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but—"

"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, but—"

Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old man. But don't lose heart. I know it's
pretty tough on a fellow—"

"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me—and I had to fall down."

"Don't think of that. It's not your fault—"

"You're the only man who believes that, Harry."

"Buck up. I'll stumble across some better opening for you before long, and—"

"Stop right there. I'm through—"

"Don't talk that way, Nat. I'll get you in right somewhere."

"You're the best-hearted man alive, Harry—but I'll see you damned first."

"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here's this man Burnham—you don't know him, but he's as
keen as they make 'em. He's on the track of some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from
crude oil; if it goes through—if the invention's really practicable—it's bound to work a revolution. He's
down in Washington now—left this afternoon to look up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of
the Standard Oil people, and I'll get you in there."

"What right've you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the dickens do I know about illuminating
gas or crude oil? Burnham'd never thank you for the likes o' me."

"But—thunder!—you can learn. All you need—."

"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be denied. "Once and for all time
understand I'm through having you recommend an incompetent—just because we're friends."

"But, Harry—"

"And I'm through living on you while I'm out of a job. That's final."

"But, man—listen to me!—when we were at college—"

"That was another matter."

"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many times did your money
pull me through when I'd have had to quit and forfeit my degree because I couldn't earn enough to keep
on?"

"That's different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don't owe me anything."

"I owe you the gratitude for the friendly hand that put me in the way of earning—that kept me going
when the going was rank. Besides, the conditions are just reversed now; you'll do just as I did—make
good in the world and, when it's convenient, to me. As for living here, you're perfectly welcome."

"I know it—and more," Duncan assented a little wearily. "Don't think I don't appreciate all you've done
for me. But I know and you must understand that I can't keep on living on you,—and I won't."

For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met his gaze steadily, strong in the
sincerity of his attitude. At length Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged
uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."

"I do."

"Then that's settled."

"Yes, that's settled."

"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is served."

III

INSPIRATION

"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the meal, "do you mind telling
me what you're going to do?"

Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.

Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does that kind of a 'No' mean, Nat?"

"It means I don't mind telling you."

Again an appreciable pause elapsed.

"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned his attention to his plate; and in
silence, for the most part, the remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had
certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether forgotten his own cause for rejoicing
in his concern for the fortunes of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have to
be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the profoundest depths of romantic
impossibilities in his attempts to discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but
impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and acquired. But nothing presented itself
as feasible in view of the fact that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was
required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them alone with coffee and cigars and
cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to confess failure—though the confession was a very private one, confined
to himself only.

"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of meditations, "what under the sun
can you do?"

"Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make out somehow."

"But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else."

"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in which I am fitted to shine is that of
the idle son of a rich and foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt."

"That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or other, some sort of an ability concealed
about his person."

"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.

His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then delivered himself of a didactic
conclusion:

"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."

"Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in my case."

"Let's see: I've know you—er—nine years."

"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the interior of his demitasse, displaying
his first gleam of interest in this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer. Any man
who'd stand for me for nine years—"

"That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to say that you can't room with a man for
four terms at college and then know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without
forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind."

"And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little business man as well as the finest sort of
an all-round good-fellow on this continent."

"Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me down just at the time you need me
most.... What I was trying to get at is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an
instant."

"You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers, Harry."

"Given the proper opportunity—"

"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you're going to say, and it's all very fine, and I'm proud
that you want to say it of me. But you're dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven't got it in me—the
capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought to know, for I've had a good, hard
try at it—several tries, in fact. And you know what they came to."

"But if you persist in this way, Nat,—don't you know what it means?"

"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of—the life that nearly killed me."

"And you'd rather—"

"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve
try the East River or turn on the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."

"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn money."

"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn it—that's a cinch."

Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something which had popped into his head
within the last few moments. "There are ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
particular."

"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."

This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his manner. "You mean you'd steal to
get money?"

"Oh, well ..." Duncan smiled a trace sheepishly. "I can't think of anything hardly I wouldn't do to get it."

"Very well, my son. Now attend to uncle." Kellogg leaned across the table, fixing him with an
enthusiastic eye. "Here, have a smoke. I'm going to demonstrate high finance to your debased
intelligence." He thrust the cigarette case over to Duncan, who helped himself mechanically, his gaze held
in wonder to Kellogg's face.

"Fire when ready," he assented.

"I know a way," said Kellogg slowly, "by which, if you'll discard a scruple or two, you can be worth a
million dollars—or thereabouts—within a year."

Duncan held a lighted match until it singed his fingertips, the while he stared agape. "Say that again," he
requested mildly.

"You can be worth a million in a year."

"Ah!" Duncan nodded slowly and comprehendingly. He turned aside in his chair and raked a second
match across the sole of his shoe. "Let him rave," he observed enigmatically, and began to smoke. "No,
I'm not dippy; and I'm perfectly serious."

"Of course. But what'd they do to me if I were caught?"

"This is not a joke; the proposition's perfectly legal; it's being done right along."

"And I could do it, Harry?"

"A man of your calibre couldn't fail."

"Would you mind ringing for Robbins?" Duncan asked abruptly.

"Certainly." Kellogg pressed a button at his elbow. "What d'you want?"

"A straight-jacket and a doctor to tell which one of us needs it."

Kellogg, chagrined as he always was if joked with when expounding one of his schemes, broke into a
laugh that lasted until Robbins appeared.

"You rang, sir?"

"Yes. Put those decanters over here, and some glasses, please."

"Yes, sir."

The man obeyed and withdrew. Kellogg filled two glasses, handing one to Duncan.

"Now be decent and listen to me, Nat. I've thought this thing over for—oh, any amount of time. I'll bet
anything it will work. What d'you say? Would you like to try it?"

"Would I like to try it?" A conviction of Kellogg's earnestness forced itself upon Duncan's understanding.
"Would I—!" He lifted his glass and drained it at a gulp. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had for a
month!"

"Then I'll tell you—"

Duncan placed a pleading hand on his forearm. "Don't kid me, Harry," he entreated.

"Not a bit of it. This is straight goods. If you want to try it and will follow the rules I lay down, I'll

guarantee you'll be a rich man inside of twelve months."

"Rules! Man, I'll follow all the rules in the world! Come on—I'm getting palpitation of the heart, waiting.
Tell it to me: what've I got to do?"

"Marry," said Kellogg serenely.

"Marry!" Duncan echoed, aghast.

"Marry," reaffirmed the other with unbroken gravity.

"Marry—who?"

"A girl with a fortune.... You see, I can't guarantee the precise size of her pile. That all depends on luck
and the locality. But it'll run anywhere from several hundred thousand up to a million—perhaps more."

Duncan sank back despondently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Harry," he said dully; "you had
me all excited, for a minute."

"No, but honestly, I mean what I say."

"Now look here: do you really think any girl with a million would take a chance on me?"

"She'll jump at it."

Duncan thought this over for a while. Then his lips twitched. "What's the matter with her?" he inquired.
"I'm willing to play the game as it lies, but I bar lunatics and cripples."

"There's no particular her—yet. You can take your pick. I've no more idea where she is than you have."

"Now I know you're stark, staring, gibbering——"

"Not a bit of it. I'm inspired—that's all. I've solved your problem—you only can't believe it."

"How could I? What the devil are you getting at, anyhow?"

"This pet scheme of mine. Lend me your ears. Have you ever lived in a one-horse country town—a
place with one unspeakable hotel and about twenty stores and five churches?"

"No ..."

"I have; I was born in one of 'em.... Have you any idea what becomes of the young people of such
towns?"

"Not a glimmering."

"Then I'll enlighten your egregious density. ...The boys—those who've got the stuff in them—strike out
for the cities to make their everlasting fortunes. Generally they do it, too."

"The same as you."

"The same as me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the Jaspers, stay there and clerk in
father's store. After office-hours they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down
Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The girls haven't much else to do; they don't
find it so easy to get away. A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet and
marry young men from the cities, but the majority of them have to stay at home and help mother—that's
a tradition. If there are two children or more, the boys get the chance every time; the girls stay home to
comfort the old folks in their old age. Why, by the time they're old enough to think of marrying—and
they begin young, for that's about the only excitement they find available—you won't find a small c...